Legros, a miserable scaffold-dog, took up the head by the remaining hair, and struck at the cheeks. It is said the skin grew scarlet, as though the modesty of Charlotte Corday outlasted her life. Did her face change color? Some hold that the head has consciousness and power after being severed from the body, and that it can see and hear. Nay, it was urged during the Revolution that the passion of the heads remained, because the interior of the wicker baskets in which the heads were carried away were often found to be gnawed, as though the teeth of the heads gnashed after separation from the body. For my part, I believe that this gnawing was effected by rats, which at that time, even more than now, overran Paris. Such was the death of Marat—of his murderer, whom we cannot praise. But who can blame her? Assuredly her death was necessary to purge her of assassination, to some extent. Adam Lux, wild with love, published a defence of Charlotte Corday. He was seized, and, three days afterwards, died by the very knife which destroyed her life. Chénier, the patriotic poet, sang her heroism. He was soon arrested, and therefore beheaded. But what good had Charlotte Corday done? She had strengthened the love of the people for desperate measures; she had made a martyr of their most foul leader. She gave a dignity to those who advocated the scaffold. The liberal twenty-two knew that this last act annihilated them. CHAPTER LVIII. MARIE ANTOINETTE. The Convention ordained the _worship_ of Marat, and cast his corpse to the people as an idol. He was called Cæsar, and his funeral was modelled upon the historical narrative of that given by Rome to the great Julius. The body was carried by torchlight to the garden of the house in which he made his most inflammatory speeches; and there he was buried under trees heavily laden with countless brilliantly-illuminated paper lamps. His head was placed in an urn, and hung in the centre of the Convention. His memory was decreed an altar, and at its foot his admirers appropriately called for blood. The enemy was now approaching on all sides, and thousands more Royalists were in array. Meanwhile Danton was sinking in estimation, Robespierre rising, for Robespierre was a patient man. Danton, dazzled with his new wife, wished to live the life of a small country gentleman. It was too late. Robespierre was breaking in health, but his temperance would stand him in good stead of health for a long while. His motto was “Wait.” The Committee of Public Safety was meanwhile reaping a rich harvest of death. Money was no longer to be seen. Bread was rare. People were dying of starvation (especially the old) in every street. The more cruel of the Conventionists carried by acclamation these decrees—the true legal inauguration of the Reign of Terror: “Six thousand soldiers and twelve hundred artillerymen to do blindly the bidding of the Committee of Public Safety.